Fourth World Conference on Women Informal Consulations

Briefing Note #3

Delegates met on 2 August, 1995, for the third day of the week-long
informal consultations on the draft Platform for Action
for the Fourth World Conference on Women. The consultations were
called by ECOSOC to resolve some of the outstanding issues in
the draft text. All text that remains bracketed after the 4 August
session must be resolved during the 4 to 15 September conference
in Beijing. Delegates at the informal consultation in New York,
at UN headquarters, are using two working groups to examine the
bracketed text by issue areas, or clusters of bracketed text that
address the same subject.

Working Group I, chaired by Patricia Licuanan
(Philippines), spent the morning revisiting several unresolved
texts from Tuesday's discussion regarding debt, sustainable development,
transnational corporations and economic policies. One issue that
required significant discussion was how to refer to countries
with economies in transition. Delegates moved on to the bracketed
text in the resources cluster during the afternoon. After a slow
start on text related to new and additional resources, the group
made some progress in removing brackets. An informal-informal
evening session was expected, during which delegates would return
to some of the macroeconomic and resource issues on which agreement
appeared close during initial discussions.

Working Group II, chaired by Irene Freudenschuss
(Austria), continued its examination of bracketed text related
to human rights. A number of brackets were removed from text
related to mandates of human rights machinery, economic rights
and the right to development, sexual harassment and stereotypes.
The right of inheritance and the concepts of equity/equitable
generated a great deal of debate but no resolution. An evening
session was planned to continue discussion of the bracketed text
in the human rights cluster.

The Chinese delegation agreed to brief the delegates on Thursday,
3 August on the matter of visas.

The opinions expressed in this briefing note are those of the
authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of IISD and other
funders. Excerpts from this briefing note may be used in other
publications with appropriate citation. �